Trump's garden party was a wicked carnival of grievances, misogyny and racism but also a preview of what the country would be if he's elected, by Hal M. Brown, MSW

 

Colorized version

This is the coverage (from Google News) of the Trump rally. Click image to enlarge the titles just from the top of the page.

This is the first article, on the bottom left above) that I clicked on: 

I’m a U.S. Navy veteran. Here’s why I’m protesting Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally

Next to the photo I used to illustrate this blog he wrote:

In February 1939, over 20,000 Americans gathered at MSG to support Hitler in a shocking display intertwining American nationalism, swastikas, and images of George Washington. Hijacking Washington’s birthday, they advocated for a “white-only America” and included a Pledge of Allegiance, posters stating, “Stop Jewish Domination of Christian America,” uniformed stormtroopers, and speakers denouncing Jewish refugees and praising American racism like the anti-miscegenation laws, the Chinese Exclusion Act, and Jim Crow policies.

“It’s always been American to protect the Aryan character of this country,” declared one speaker, Gerhard Wilhelm Kunze.

Does any of this sound familiar? It should. Trump’s rhetoric echoes the same dangerous themes. He frames immigrants as invaders, journalists as enemies, and political opponents as existential threats to America’s future. This is the same playbook authoritarian leaders have used for centuries.

He wrote this prior to the rally. Not ony did everything the author, Ken Harbaugh, predicted would happen actually happened, it was worse than I would guess he thought it would be.

By now if you have been watching MSNBC's "Morning Joe" and watched some of the coverage last night, you have seen discussions about how the rally was replete with offensive and racist comments. 

The New York Times (which unlike The Washington Post and the LA Times) has endorsed a candidate) published this article (subsription): 

Here's how it begins:

Donald J. Trump’s closing rally at Madison Square Garden on the second to last Sunday before the election was a release of rage at a political and legal system that impeached, indicted and convicted him, a vivid and at times racist display of the dark energy animating the MAGA movement.

A comic kicked off the rally by dismissing Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage,” then mocked Hispanics as failing to use birth control, Jews as cheap and Palestinians as rock-throwers, and called out a Black man in the audience with a reference to watermelon.

Another speaker likened Vice President Kamala Harris to a prostitute with “pimp handlers.” A third called her “the Antichrist.” And the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson mocked Ms. Harris — the daughter of an Indian mother and a Jamaican father — with a made-up ethnicity, saying she was vying to become “the first Samoan-Malaysian, low IQ former California prosecutor ever to be elected president.”

By the time the former president himself took the stage, an event billed as delivering the closing message of his campaign, with nine days left in a tossup race, had instead become a carnival of grievances, misogyny and racism.

The article didn't go into what Trump actually said beyond this: "Mr. Trump took the stage two hours after scheduled — was often infused with more self-indulgence than political strategy. It was about what they called a closing carnival of grievances, misogyny and racism. I would add that it was a preview of what a Trump administration would look like. 

I have a feeling that when the Trump event was called a carnival the writers were thinking of Ray Bradbury's classic novel "Something Wicked This Way Comes" because it is about a wicked carnival with a menacing villian named Mr. Dark. Note the subtitle: The inflammatory rally was a capstone for an increasingly aggrieved campaign for Donald Trump, whose rhetoric has grown darker and more menacing. Mr. Dark is described in Wikipedia as follows:

 "Mr. Dark", who seemingly wields the power to grant the townspeople's secret desires. In reality, Dark is a malevolent being who, like the carnival, lives off the life force of those it enslaves. 

I could go on to draw a parallel with Trump and Mr. Dark, and the secret desires, though not so secret desires, of the people who are the townspeople who support him, but I am sure you can do this yourself. 

 Addendum: Here's an article that you may have missed.

This is what Kathleen Belew, an associate professor of history at Northwestern University, posted on X:

The point here is that fascism is on full display, openly: no dog whistles, no plausible deniability. It's a show of power and an another attempt to make this look and feel normal.And it will not just magically disappear after the election, regardless of the outcome. In fact, it might be worth thinking through the very likely possibility that this kind of display suggests that this candidate and this movement don't care that much about the outcome.

This is what Ruth Ben-Ghiat, historian and author of "Strongmen" posted on X in response to Aaron Rupar noting that almost every speaker at this rally has claimed that "they" tried to kill Trump.

The purpose of this is to conjure a threat environment sufficient to justify authoritarian action if they win. Old trick of those planning coups as well.

On Salon Heather "Digby" Parton wrote a column which includes some quotes I won't share becasue I want to keep this blog PG rated. 

Trump's Madison Square Garden scandal: Is it too late to undo the damage?

She concluded:

Is it just another tempest in a teapot? Could be. Trump is a master at eluding all accountability. He didn't say anything about it in his own speech but perhaps he'll address it today and that will be the end of it. But if there's a lesson from 2016 it's that a scandal that would normally blow over given enough time can be lethal in the final days of a campaign. In a tied race it's the last thing any campaign would want.

Of course, everything that was said in that rally should, by all rights, disqualify Trump in the minds of decent people everywhere. I'll never understand how any of that is considered normal political discourse now. But specifically insulting a group (Puerto Ricans) that's necessary for victory is just plain dumb even for them. All it takes is just a point or two in the right place and it could be the death blow.  

This is from HuffPost:

Just a note about how Madison Square Garden is being abbreviated as MSG. When I lived in New York we just called it "The Garden." Ricky Nelson sang Garden Party (see video). MSG most often stands for monosodium gulatamate, the flavor enhancer generally considered safe for your health. In this instance the rally at MSG is not safe for the health of democracy.

Read previous blogs.

Has Trump's crude phallocentric politics led to evangelicals abandoning him? By Hal M. Brown, MSW

Who would ever have thought that the size of Arnold Palmer's penis would come up in a presidential election? Most adults, even none golfers, know that Arnold Palmer was one of the world's greatest golfers and even know that a drink which is still popular was named for him.  It is shown above in the long glass which it is generally served in.

From here I make the leap into Trump and Jesus and then to Trump and phallic symbols:
 

Voters who saw nothing tawdry, let alone sacrilegious, about images of Trump and Jesus shown above and didn't find it off-putting that Trump would sell electonic trading cards like the decidely phallic one may be rethinking voting for him. Consider this article:

The article begins:

Donald Trump’s “Believers and Ballots Faith Town Hall” in Zebulon, Georgia, on Wednesday was very short on words about believers, ballots or faith. In the closing days of past campaigns, the Republican Party and its Christian right allies made strong appeals to these voters to get out to the polls in huge numbers to save “Christian” America and “biblical” values. On Wednesday, though, Trump’s perfunctory appearance at Christ Chapel Church in the battleground state punted on an opportunity to make such a plea inside a church. The abbreviated, uncomfortable charade showed how Trump, in his third presidential run, has dispensed with the GOP’s farcical claim to being the party of religious Americans, relying instead on his status as a messiah figure to mobilize his loyal base of white evangelical voters. 

One of the town hall participants asked Trump about a survey released earlier this month by the evangelical pollster George Barna and Arizona Christian University, claiming that 32 million regular churchgoers may not vote this November (this is not the first time Barna has made such dire pronouncements, including in 2016, when Trump won). Asked to “share a final message to those Christians to encourage them to go to the polls,” Trump could not even bring himself to offer such a message. He did not acknowledge or thank the voters who helped propel him to the White House eight years ago and stood by him throughout his scandalous presidency and insurrection. Instead, he said, “Christians are not tremendous voters,” and then rambled for nearly three minutes on themes of religious persecution by “not nice” and “stupid” people, guns and COVID restrictions, without completing coherent sentences or thoughts.

The article goes on to describe how Trump and his "embrace of a new evangelical leader, far-right campus troll and election denier Charlie Kirk may have worked against him." Kirk claimed Democrats “stand for everything God hates” and called the election “a spiritual battle.”

If these evangelical voters are paying attention at all they should be realizing that Trump is a sleazy lowlife liar who will pander for votes in any way that he can from courting the phallocentric (look it up here) "bros" who are fans of the Joe Rogan show to using language to attack his enemies that, if their kids used words like that, they'd be taken to task.

Read this from The States Newsroom:

The article, which I find an extraordinary example of how unprecedentedly bizarre this campaign has become, begins:

In all fairness, the latest installment of our phallocentric presidential politics began with Barack Obama’s taunt of Donald Trump’s fragile manhood at the Democratic National Convention last summer.

With one deft move, Obama combined a humorous observation about Trump’s preoccupation with the size of his rallies with hand gestures the raucous crowd interpreted as a reference to the former president’s brag about his penis size during the 2016 Republican primary.

In an exchange with then rival Sen. Marco Rubio, Trump denied that the size of his hands bespoke any sexual inadequacy on his part. “Look at those hands, are they small hands?” Trump said to a stunned, but thoroughly titillated nation watching the debate on television. “And he referred to my hands — ‘if they’re small, something else must be small.’ I guarantee you, there’s no problem. I guarantee.”

It was a puerile insult that a bigger man — and certainly every woman — would’ve ignored as too stupid and self-demeaning to engage, but not Trump. 

The GOP frontrunner was more than willing to become the first presidential candidate in history who was insecure enough to assure voters he possessed enough ‘big penis energy’ to lead America into whatever post-coital future it could imagine.

Pehraps the accusations coming from no fewer that 23 women about how Trump sexually assaulted them is starting to lead them to believe that there's no way all of them could be making this up. Maybe they are wondering about why Trump would want to hang out with Jeffrey Epstein.

I see the preening narcisstic (read yesterday's blog about that term) phallocentric Trump having his deepest insecurities being triggered by the fact that he is running against a self-confident and accomplished woman who also happens to be physically attractive, one who clearly doesn't see him as the hunk, the hunk of burning love he fancies himself to be.

Sorry Trump, you never were and never will be Elvis.

Yesterday's blog:

I just read an article blasting Trump for wearing more makeup than Kamala and was reminded about how Jennifer Senior first called him a preening narcissist.

Read all previous blogs.

I just read an article blasting Trump for wearing more makeup than Kamala and was reminded about how Jennifer Senior first called him a preening narcissist, by Hal M. Brown, MSW

I just read this in RawStory: 

'He's not actually masculine': Trump blasted for 'wearing more make-up' than Kamala Harris

That article begins:

Donald Trump isn't actually masculine, but he is using men's fears against them in his presidential campaign, an expert said.

Liz Plank, the author of the book For the Love of Men: A Vision for Mindful Masculinity, appeared on MSNBC on Saturday to discuss the gender gap in the current presidential election and how men are looking at the candidates.

It goes on to say:

"Can we talk about masculinity, right? Trump is putting on a performance of masculinity. Because he's not actually masculine. This is a guy who spends more time with his make-up artists than with his own advisors. But even setting aside that he probably wears more make-up than Kamala Harris, masculine men aren't afraid of women. They're not afraid to debate women. Masculine men don't have meltdowns on stage because a woman that they didn't like asked them a question that they didn't like. Masculine men aren't manipulated by people who give them compliments." 

This reminded me of Jennifer Senior writing a column on April 5, 2020 when she was still at The New York Times. She's now at The Atlantic.

I added Bart and Homer to the illiustration below. Read on to see why.

This Is What Happens When a Narcissist Runs a Crisis — Trump’s catastrophic performance has as much to do with psychology as ideology.

This was the first time I'd seen the term "preening narcissist" applied t0 Donald Trump:

“That news conference was, to me, the most frightening moment of the Trump presidency. His preening narcissism, his compulsive lying, his vindictiveness, his terror of germs and his terrifying inability to grasp basic science — all of it eclipsed his primary responsibilities to us as Americans, which was to provide urgent care, namely in the form of leadership.

She begins with a link to the website started by Dr. John Gartner, the founder of Duty to Warn who was producing a documentary about Trump (right) at the time.

Since the early days of the Trump administration, an impassioned group of mental health professionals have warned the public about the president’s cramped and disordered mind, a darkened attic of fluttering bats. Their assessments have been controversial. The American Psychiatric Association’s code of ethics expressly forbids its members from diagnosing a public figure from afar.

Here are the excerpts specifically addressing how Trump’s psychopathology manifests itself and is endangering human life and the institutions of society. I’ve bullet-pointed them:

• First: Narcissistic personalities like Trump harbor skyscraping delusions about their own capabilities. They exaggerate their accomplishments, focus obsessively on projecting power, and wish desperately to win.
• Second: The grandiosity of narcissist personalities belies an extreme fragility, their egos as delicate as foam. They live in terror of being upstaged. They’re too thin skinned to be told they’re wrong.
• What that means, during this pandemic: Narcissistic leaders never have, as Trump likes to say, the best people. They have galleries of sycophants. With the exceptions of Drs. Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx, Trump has surrounded himself with a Z-team of dangerously inexperienced toadies and flunkies — the bargain-bin rejects from Filene’s Basement — at a time when we require the brightest and most imaginative minds in the country.
• Meanwhile, Fauci and Birx measure every word they say like old-time apothecaries, hoping not to humiliate the narcissist — never humiliate a narcissist — while discreetly correcting his false hopes and falsehoods.

That OpEd was the second time Jennifer Senior used a reference to Trump’s narcissism in a title: President Trump Is Unfit for This Crisis. Period. His narcissism is a grave danger to our health.

• But every aspect of Trump’s crisis management has been annexed by his psychopathology. 
• But it is true that all eyes are on him. He’s got a captive audience, an attention-addict’s dream come to life. It’s just that he, like all narcissistic personalities, has no clue how disgracefully — how shamefully, how deplorably — he’ll be enshrined in memory.

Jennifer Senior came up with another gem which applies to Donald Trump’s personality.

Unfortunately she had to demean the bumbling but basically good hearted Homer Simpson who is nothing like the evil malignant narcissist Donald Trump by referencing one of his classic aphorisms. 

This (blaming others) sounds an awful lot like one of the three sentences that Homer Simpson swears will get you through life: “It was like that when I got here.”

Not all pathological grandiose narcissists are preening narcissists obsessed with how physically attractive they are, or want to believe they are and think others envy them for their good looks. This is more like Narcissus from the Greek myth. Trump combines the characteristics of Narcissus being obsessed with his appearance with believing he is not only the best looking but the greatest in everything he does.

Earlier today I posted this blog:

LA Times and Wash. Post endorsement of Harris would have made no difference, their non-endorsement helps Trump,

.

Yesterday's blog: It's getting down to the wire and you've bet everything you have on one horse

Also these recent blogs:

"A LETTER FROM MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONALS ON TRUMP’S DANGEROUS PSYCHOPATHOLOGY" was published as an ad in The NY Times,

Yesterday: Fox News - Don't call this dignified wonderful gentleman a fascist because it may provoke another assassination attempt,

.About Hal M. Brown

Read all previous blogs.

I originally posted versions of this blog on Daily Kos.

LA Times and Wash. Post endorsement of Harris would have made no difference, their non-endorsement helps Trump, by Hal M. Brown, MSW

 

In stark contrast to these papers, The New York Times has laid out the reasons in detail for their endorsing Kamala Harris (read editorial here, subscrption required). Scroll down to bottom of page for excepts.

Never-Trumpers are enraged that the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post owners overrode their editorial boards and wouldn't let them endorse Kamala Harris for president. Staff members on both papers are expressing both outrage and dismay. 

For example this is a portion of what Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus wrote:

I love The Washington Post, deep in my bones. Last month marked my 40th year of proud work for the institution, in the newsroom and in the Opinions section. I have never been more disappointed in the newspaper than I am today, with the tragically flawed decision not to make an endorsement in the presidential race.

You can read what she had to say without a subscription here.

Columnist Karen Tumulty, who joined the staff of the Post in 2010, wrote "Refusing to endorse a candidate, The Post wounds itself" She begins by noting the irony that "At a ceremony Thursday night in New York City, two of our Post Opinions colleagues received their Pulitzer Prizes for their courageous and tenacious work spotlighting the dangers of authoritarianism. 

She concludes with the following:

Editorial boards exist to make judgments and to speak for the institution. If this change in policy regarding presidential endorsements was a stand on some long-ignored principle of our past, why did the newspaper wait until just 11 days before the election to announce it?

Our current owner has emblazoned “Democracy Dies in Darkness” on the front page of every edition of The Washington Post. With this decision, those words now stand as an indictment of ourselves.

When I read about this at first I thought "so what" because the vast majority people that read these publications are voting for Kamala anyway.

Then I changed my mind. While an endorsement of Harris wouldn't have changed a vote this decision accrues to Trump's benefit. If he hasn't already done so he can spin it his way by saying that even the liberal press won't endorse "Came-a-la" because she's too liberal for them. He can rant on about how they see she's a communist and a fascist who will destroy our beloved American Democracy.

Ali Velshi just now on MSNBC in discussing this noted that Tim Snyder, the author of "On Tyranny"  calls what they did "anticipatory obedience"... I looked it up here.

Do not obey in advance.

Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.

Anticipatory obedience is a political tragedy. Perhaps rulers did not initially know that citizens were willing to compromise this value or that principle. Perhaps a new regime did not at first have the direct means of influencing citizens one way or another. After the German elections of 1932, which brought Nazis into government, or the Czechoslovak elections of 1946, where communists were victorious, the next crucial step was anticipatory obedience. Because enough people in both cases voluntarily extended their services to the new leaders, Nazis and communists alike realized that they could move quickly toward a full regime change. The first heedless acts of conformity could not then be reversed.

It appears that the owner of the LA Times, Patrick Soon-Shiong, may be a Trump supporter. We do know that he's friends with Elon Musk who like him was born in South Africa. The owner of The Washington Post, Jeff Bezos (who also owns Amazon) may or may not be a Trump supporter but he is clearly hedging his bets.

Both of them have given Trump more than a boost. They have given him a gift which, unlike a financial donation, doesn't have to be reported. 

If Trump wins look for him to try to exert pressure on them to "Murdochize" their papers. He could try to get them to squash unfavorable coverage of him or even fire staff who don't tow the line of his MAGAzation of the country. Could we see Tucker Carlson as the new editor-in-chief of The Washington Post? Their editor-at-large has already resigned over this. The editor of the LA Times and two other editors also resigned.

I have no doubt that Trump wants to control the media and that if he's president he will attempt to do this. These decisions have only served to whet his appetite. The dictator wannabe who admires Hitler for having loyal generals (even though some tried to kill him) if he knows anything about NAZI history is aware that there was no free press in NAZI Germany or the countries they controlled.

Who knows what the Supreme Court which gave the president immunity might do to reinterpret and the gut protections of the press granted in the First Amendment? 

Here's a review of the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Some have raised the question of whether the Free Speech Clause and the Free Press Clause are coextensive, with respect to protections for the media. A number of Supreme Court decisions considering the regulation of media outlets analyzed the relevant constitutional protections without significantly differentiating between the two clauses. In one 1978 ruling, the Court expressly considered whether the institutional press is entitled to greater freedom from governmental regulations or restrictions than are non-press individuals, groups, or associations. Justice Potter Stewart argued in a concurring opinion: That the First Amendment speaks separately of freedom of speech and freedom of the press is no constitutional accident, but an acknowledgment of the critical role played by the press in American society. The Constitution requires sensitivity to that role, and to the special needs of the press in performing it effectively.But, in a plurality opinion, Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote: The Court has not yet squarely resolved whether the Press Clause confers upon the ‘institutional press’ any freedom from government restraint not enjoyed by all others. The plurality ultimately concluded that the First Amendment did not grant media the privilege of special access to prisons.

Several Supreme Court holdings firmly point to the conclusion that the Free Press Clause does not confer on the press the power to compel government to furnish information or otherwise give the press access to information that the public generally does not have. Nor, in many respects, is the press entitled to treatment different in kind from the treatment to which any other member of the public may be subjected. The Court has ruled that [g]enerally applicable laws do not offend the First Amendment simply because their enforcement against the press has incidental effects. At the same time, the Court has recognized that laws targeting the press, or treating different subsets of media outlets differently, may sometimes violate the First Amendment. 

Further, it does seem clear that, to some extent, the press, because of its role in disseminating news and information, is entitled to heightened constitutional protections—that its role constitutionally entitles it to governmental sensitivity, to use Justice Potter Stewart’s word. 

Reference.

Why stop there? The Supreme Court could decide that a president has the right to interpret the Constitution any way they want to if Trump wins. They could also say he can suspend the entire Constitution. After all having a dictatorship is not compatible with having  a working Constitution. Does anybody think Trump wants the Constitution to restrain his dictatorial ambitions?

Excerpts from NY Times endorsement which begins as follows:

It is hard to imagine a candidate more unworthy to serve as president of the United States than Donald Trump. He has proved himself morally unfit for an office that asks its occupant to put the good of the nation above self-interest. He has proved himself temperamentally unfit for a role that requires the very qualities — wisdom, honesty, empathy, courage, restraint, humility, discipline — that he most lacks.

Those disqualifying characteristics are compounded by everything else that limits his ability to fulfill the duties of the president: his many criminal charges, his advancing age, his fundamental lack of interest in policy and his increasingly bizarre cast of associates.

This unequivocal, dispiriting truth — Donald Trump is not fit to be president — should be enough for any voter who cares about the health of our country and the stability of our democracy to deny him re-election.

For this reason, regardless of any political disagreements voters might have with her, Kamala Harris is the only patriotic choice for president.

The endrocement concludes:

In 2020 this board made the strongest case it could against the re-election of Mr. Trump. Four years later, many Americans have put his excesses out of their minds. We urge them and those who may look back at that period with nostalgia or feel that their lives are not much better now than they were three years ago to recognize that his first term was a warning and that a second Trump term would be much more damaging and divisive than the first.

Kamala Harris is the only choice.

 

Yesterday's blog: It's getting down to the wire and you've bet everything you have on one horse

Also these recent blogs:

"A LETTER FROM MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONALS ON TRUMP’S DANGEROUS PSYCHOPATHOLOGY" was published as an ad in The NY Times,

Fox News - Don't call this dignified wonderful gentleman a fascist because it may provoke another assassination attempt,

.About Hal M. Brown

Read all previous blogs.

Hal Brown